Social Media for College Admissions Professionals: The Beginners Guide

Facebook in Higher Education: Social Media in College Admissions

Social Media is one of the most popular trends in higher education today, yet folks are still anxiety ridden. How much time should we be spending on social media? Who is doing it right? Who is doing it wrong? Are we missing something? Should we wait until the dust has settled to allocate budget to social media?

These are just a few of the questions that fly across your inbox and departmental meetings. In this article, we will address those by providing you with a beginners guide to understanding social media for college admissions departments.

A typical situation in admissions

The decision makers at colleges and universities have not been fully convinced of social media’s ROI, and the space is still too new for evangelists at those institutions to make a compelling case for heavy investment in social media. There is still much trial and error that is needed, and the space can seem a bewildering time-suck to a novice.

There are a lot of conversations about “strategy,” because this is how traditional approaches to Marketing and Communication have worked.  The reality is that the best strategy is to just get started and feel it out.  But, here’s to humor you:

A Social Media Strategy

Inigral, Inc recently undertook the task of coming up with the simplest possible strategy, which you can read more about on University Business. Here it is:

  1. Find conversations.
  2. Host conversations.
  3. Participate.

Of course, for most that wasn’t really a manual they could sink their teeth into, so after having a lot of conversations Inigral came up with a more robust set of five guiding principles:

  1. Think relevant and dynamic. Come up with a few major segments of your audience, and make a few streams of content production that speak to that segment. Keep it going always.
  2. Think chunky and sticky. Today’s internet users are being bombarded; you have to catch their eye with images and video. At any point if you expose them to more information than they are asking for, you lose them.
  3. Think real-time dialog. You should know when people are posting and asking questions, and you should respond in a relevant time period, which is as soon as possible.
  4. Think showcase. Remember, people are primarily interested in themselves and their immediate social group, so you can capture your audience a person at a time by featuring them. Have them guest blog, post their pictures, have them tell their stories. They’ll pay attention and share it with their friends.
  5. Think call-to-action and conversion. Always be pushing them down the funnel. Social media participation is just another conversion point in a blended marketing environment. If you don’t ask them to take the next step or view more information, they definitely won’t.

What makes social media in college admissions unique?

With the main revenue stream of most universities being tuition revenue, the college admissions process is different from the other processes leveraging social media on campus. While most social media in admissions strategies are still young, creative ways to get substantial value must be used. It’s already difficult to track and gauge an ROI for efforts using tools like Facebook and Twitter. But it’s still necessary to dedicate resources to social media because it’s the language of the college applicant. Month after month more data is uncovered to help make business sense out of social media in college admissions. We’re all keeping our eyes peeled for new trends and findings as this field matures.

What blogs are being read?

Notable Social Media in College Admissions People

To start, we wanted to give you our two favorite team Twitter accounts, and our two favorite personal Twitter accounts for social media in college admissions.

twitter_32 RethinkingAdmis The Rethinking Admissions Twitter account is led by Wake Forest University’s Admissions department, serving up tweets from their frequently updated blog, “Continuing the Conversations”

twitter_32 bluefuego The guys at BlueFuego, a higher-ed focused marketing firm, bring a fun, fresh perspective to the social media in higher ed dialogue. Led by Chief Explosion Officer Brad Ward, the admissions officer new to Twitter is bound to learn a thing or two from their Indiana headquarters.

twitter_32 rachelreuben Rachel Reuben is the Director of Web Communications at SUNY New Paltz, and launched her own consulting business in January 2010. She is regularly invited to present at conferences across the country, and blogs on her site http://rachelreuben.com.

twitter_32 cdorso Chris D’Orso, the recent higher ed contestant on Jeopardy, is the Assistant Director of Admissions at SUNY Stony Brook. When not cheering on the SeaWolves, or sending out admissions letters to new admits, he’s serving up relevant tweets to keep us informed of life on the inside.

twitter_32 admissposs Jonathon Shaevitz supplies a one-stop admissions resource to help students and their parents choose, apply, and get accepted to the college of their choice.

twitter_32 CollegeBoundNet Gina and Barbara tweet on all topics pertaining to college, including admissions, tests, financial aid, scholarships, and everything else in between. This is a really good example of how to be a resource to your followers on admissions topics.

Related Books

What tools are college admissions departments using?

From a technology standpoint, certain companies are considered movers and shakers in the higher education space, including ourselves. (Learn more about these tools by downloading our 2009 College Social Media report.  Learn more about our Admitted Student Social Network here.)

Notable College Social Media presences

There are many colleges that are trying to crack the code on developing the best social media presence to reach their high school recruits

Notable Conferences and Events on Social Media in College Admissions

Noteworthy Articles

Conclusion

Over the past five years, the process of promoting a school to the newest class of incoming students has changed drastically due to a phenomenon known as social media. The word ‘social’ has even been redefined as taking place on the web, whereas social used to imply face-to-face interactions. With the dawn of Facebook, people of all ages and backgrounds are now communicating via the web in more in-depth ways than possible before due to the web’s flexibility. What role does this play when trying to get students to choose your institution?

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Apr 14, 2010
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